26912Indians claim Italy by right of discovery !

Italy, cradle
of Western
civili­zation,
woke up today to the
fact that it
has never actually
been discovered. The situation,
however, was remedied
at 11
o’clock in the morning when the chief
of the
Indian Chippewa tribe, Adam
Nordwall, stepped off an Alitalia
jumbo jet
and claimed it
for the
Indian people.

The
intrepid
explorer, in
full Indian
dress, accompanied
by his
wife—in ordinary clothes
because her suitcase
had been
lost in New York—stood
on the
tarmac of Fiumicino airport here and took possession of Italy
“by right
of discovery.”

The fact that Italy has long been inhabited by people
who consider
themselves to be in full possession of the place was exactly the point that
Mr. Nordwall was trying
to make.
“What right
had Columbus
to discover America
when it was
already inhabited for thousands of years? The
same right that
I have to come now to Italy and claim to have discovered your country,” he said.

The difference, however, was that
Columbus “came to conquer a country by force where a peaceful people were
living, while I am on a mission
of peace and
goodwill.”

Mr. Nordwall led
a party of Indians which occupied
the prison
on Alcatraz in
San Fran­cisco
Bay in 1969 to call
attention to
the conditions
in which
Indians were compelled to live in America.